by Deck Davis
Now, he clicked a button on his laptop and maximized a window. A video stream channel appeared. In the little box was a fantasy landscape. A landscape he recognized all too well…because he’d made it.
Lucas had been watching the in-game video stream of a minotaur player off-and-on for the last few weeks. Whenever he got a little downtime from sightseeing, he’d load it up and see what she was doing.
This morning had made for interesting viewing, that was for sure.
He could see what she was planning, and he felt like he needed to give her a little brotherly advice.
The trouble was, Lucas didn’t play Soulboxe. Since selling his shares, he’d decided he wouldn’t play it, because it’d feel weird. Like selling your prized car to a friend, and then getting in the passenger seat while they drove you around in it.
Without a player character, Lucas couldn’t get a message to the minotaur. Luckily, an ex-dev always had ways.
Even luckier, the new development team hadn’t updated any of the development software.
So, Lucas logged into Soulboxe using the admin program on his laptop. His old profile had been deleted, of course, but he had a trick. Years ago, Lucas had created a dummy employee file with full development access. he’d committed the name and username to memory.
“Let’s hope it still works,” he said.
Username: Ganda L. F. Grey
Password: Flyyoufools
It was a stupid username, sure. If anyone saw it, they’d have assumed it was a dummy set up for training purposes, and they’d delete it. But that was the problem. That was a symbol of the reasons Soulboxe went the way it did; they got lax. All of them. Even Lucas.
His laptop speakers made a ping sound. Lucas found himself looking at the developer admin database. He went to the player list section and started scrolling.
“Ernalvis, Estrella, Estimato…here we go! Etta.”
It couldn’t have been easier. Now, he opened a message screen, and he wrote a note to the minotaur named Etta.
Hey sis! I just thought I’d let you know that you need to be careful with the tower. There’s something that they haven’t told anyone yet. Something that happens inside it. See, you need to…
And then another message appeared.
Username locked!
Damn it. Maybe the new dev team wasn’t as lax as he’d thought.
“Hey, guys! I have good news and bad news,” said Trent.
The good and bad news comment would have been no surprise to people watching Trent McGovern’s show. It was his catchphrase. He opened every video with it, always finding something positive and negative.
It was part of the reason that so many people tuned in to his casts. He was a blast of fresh air in a smoggy world, and he had a nice way about him that made him likable.
But if he was always positive, it’d get too much. So, this was what won Trent so many followers; he’d always give a negative, too. Balance in a chaotic world.
If it was a video where he was trying to draw attention to his favorite charity, things could get heavy. To counter that, he’d try and include some good news stories.
If the video was more upbeat, say a sneak preview of an upcoming game with unseen footage, he’d try to balance things. He'd highlight some of the flaws in what they were seeing, so he could temper the hype.
Trent had been looking forward to today’s show all night. He’d barely slept, and it was showing in the bags under his eyes. With his microphone in front of him and laptop open he could see his face the way it would display to the viewers. His big beard, his swept-back hair, his tired eyes.
Some streamers wore make-up. Nothing wrong with that, but it would have gone against all of Trent’s principles. He never tried to hide anything on his show. Nothing was faked. If he was tired, then he’d just have to appear tired on video.
As exhausted as his face looked, his brain was trembling with excitement. He took a sip of coffee. Not too professional while casting, but screw it.
“I only agreed this last night, guys,” he said into the microphone. “Please don’t think I’ve been holding out on you. Believe me, if I knew sooner, I would have been shouting it from the rooftops.”
On his laptop, he saw the chat bar begin to thrum to life as his listeners speculated on what he was about to tell them. Cool it, guys. I’m getting to it!
He cleared his throat. Took another sip of coffee.
“So, you know how I had a Soulboxe dev on the show last week?”
Great cast! Typed one viewer.
She was hot, typed another.
I’m a giant asshole who can’t place nice, and I need to learn some manners typed a third.
This was a strange thing to type, sure. All the stranger because the person hadn’t meant to type it. Trent had gotten sick of certain people saying to him you’re an asshole. He’d toyed with the chat settings and replaced you’re an asshole with something more appropriate.
Trent, who didn't respond to comments until his show ended, felt like he better say something in case the dev was listening. And he really, really hoped she was listening.
“She’s not just hot, you dope,” he said, his likable nature managing to make this come out as playful. “She played a role in developing one of the most important games of the twenty-first century. But anyhow, she had a wonderful time on the show last week, so she’s done me a solid. A big, steaming, golden solid.”
Way to phrase it, typed a viewer.
Trent grinned. “Good point. But nevertheless, you’re going to love this. Because, my friends, you guys are going to see history today. Well, gaming history. Well, Soulboxe history, anyway. It’s a very niche part of history, but you’ll be here to see it.”
What is it?
Spill it! Why do you always keep us hanging?
“Because sometimes the anticipation is better than realization,” said Trent. “Remember the book I’ve been reading to you in Friday night book club? The one about self-discipline? Do you guys listen? But I’m getting to it, okay. Get ready.”
We’re ready!
“Good. Today, my friends from around the world, we’re going to get to watch some footage from inside the Tower of Windborne. Player streams always shut off when someone goes into a tower. Nobody has a friggin clue what’s in there. Well, you lucky people are going to see. Here we go.”
Without giving them a chance to breathe, Trent pressed a button. He switched the view of his stream to his 3rd monitor.
Now, all Trent’s viewers could see was a man, and a door.
Specifically, a man wearing armor that had started silver, but was now scorched black by fire. It was dented all over, and stained by blood and other liquids that weren’t as easy to identify.
His hair was coated in sweat, his eyes were wide and shocked. He held a sword so tightly in his grip that it might have fused to his hand.
A few paces ahead was an oval door made of a black material that looked like tree bark, except shiny and wet. There were no markings, no labels, nothing to tell the world what lay behind it. You could see in the warrior’s eyes that he didn’t expect puppies and a ball pit.
The picture flicked back to Trent now, who was holding a half-eaten glazed doughnut. He smiled wide. A studious viewer might have seen that he was missing two teeth, victims of his love of sugar and hate of dentistry. A bad combo for anyone.
“Cool, huh?” said Trent. “A lot of the doors look like this, I’m told,” he said. “I haven’t seen much of the tower. Honesty! I really haven’t. But…I have a big, big surprise.”
He paused now. He liked to build up the tension. Keep people waiting. His father was a stage magician, and Trent learned the lesson from him. Keep ‘em wanting more, and keeping waiting for what they want.
Get on with it, you I’m a giant asshole who can’t place nice, and I need to learn some manners, typed a viewer.
“Here’s the surprise,” said Trent.
A bite of his doughnut, sip of coffee, and a p
ause…keep them waiting…
“We get to choose what’s behind the door! Seriously; they said we can pick. What do you guys think our lucky player should face?”
Murky water and great white sharks.
A thousand bird-eating spiders!
“Good suggestions,” said Trent. “Good, wholesome suggestions. But we can’t pick just anything. We get a choice out of three things for our hero to face. Ready? Okay. Here we go.”
Trent pressed a button, and his pre-prepared graphics displayed on the stream.
Option 1
A room filled with mirrors. Every time our poor friend looks into one, his reflection comes to life. Each reflection can be good…or it can be really, really evil. I’m guessing more will be evil than good, if I know our lovely devs at all.
Option 2
The room is divided into squares. Put too much weight on the wrong square, and a platform of spikes falls and kills our hero in a painful way. The kicker? All the squares look the same.
Option 3
Something bad. Something extraordinarily bad.
Here was Trent again, with crumbs in his stubble and over his keyboard, doughnut glazing on his collar.
“Time to choose. I have in my hands,” he said, holding a stopwatch. “The stopwatch I used last year during the Godden’s Reach death waves. Remember? When we’d focus on one poor schmuck at a time and see how long it took them to bite it? This stopwatch is a relic of our channel. It has history, and it’s time to make history again. When I press start, you have 1 minute to vote. Okay…and…begin!”
Trent had set it up so that every time someone voted, audio played of people screaming. The clips were taken from in-game, and he’d stayed up almost all night putting them together. He was nothing if not dedicated, even if his focus was usually spent on stupid stuff.
The chorus of screams went on as the stopwatch digits changed and finally, Trent hit stop.
“Voting’s over,” he said. “Let’s see what our hero will face.”
Gallo Wolf’s heart hammered so hard he could almost feel it dinking against his steel armor. That was no exaggeration, either.
His chosen class was sword mage, but the race he’d picked when starting Soulboxe was Dark Weaver.
Although this gave him attack and defense bonuses in dark places – which the tower supplied lots of– he had a weakness. His heart was outside his body.
Of all the myriad races in Soulboxe, this was the god-damned weirdest, that was for sure.
He looked human at first glance. Normal, even. But if he took off his armor, he’d reveal a protrusion on the upper left part of his chest. A twisting of bones, almost like a deer’s antlers, but with a heart nestled within.
It meant that he needed to buy custom-made armor from NPC or player armorers. His armor was his first line of defense. After that, was his cage of bones.
When those failed, he was in for a broken heart. Literally.
Now, facing another tower room, he felt his heart thud rapidly, and he could never get used to how audible the beat was.
He breathed in. He thought calming thoughts. He imagined himself on a prairie with Mux, his childhood whippet dog who he missed every day.
Feeling centered, he was ready.
He reached out and placed his palm against the door and got ready to push.
So far he’d faced lava pits, giant serpents, and blighted zombies. But not everything in the tower wanted to kill you. In fact, the last room had been the toughest, and Gallo had hardly swung his sword or spoken a spell.
Yeah, that was a tough room, alright.
He had opened the door to find a goblin child and a cute little puppy waiting for him. No enemies, no spikes, no lava. Just the green kid and cute dog.
Oh. And some writing smeared on the walls in blood.
Only their life may open the way.
Yup. He had to choose which of them to kill to get through the room. The Soulboxe devs had problems. Real problems. They needed some goddamn therapy.
So now, faced with another oval door, his eighth, Gallo was worried about what he’d see when he opened it. He sometimes felt like the devs were out there, watching him. Like it was some kind of sick game show, where they all voted on which pit of horribleness to send him into next.
And that wasn’t all. See, the tower had other surprises.
But now wasn’t the time. He had to go into the door. He’d discovered before going into the fifth room that if you waited outside a door too long, the tower sent something horrible to hurry you along.
The Tower of Windborne hated indecision.
Breathing to steady his pulse, gripping his sword so tight his knuckles stung, he opened the door..
The room was pitch black at first, but he could hear strange noises coming from all around him. Something slammed behind him. Gallo knew the door had closed and the room had begun, and just like in every room, he wondered if this would be his last.
Gallo gathered mana in his free hand and let it build into a spell of illumination. As a sword mage, he was a jack of all trades, master of none. He could use magic, to a degree, and he could use a sword, to a degree.
He’d chosen it because in real life he loved balance. Symmetry. Everything had to be in its place. He was discovering that in Soulboxe, hedging your bets didn’t work. He was weaker than most mages, punier than most warriors. But, he’d leveled too much to start over. That was another thing he hated – admitting defeat. Maybe it was a bad idea to enter a tower of traps and puzzles where defeat was assured.
He cast his spell out, and little balls of flame spread to each wall, illuminating the whole room in an amber glow.
As his vision adjusted he wondered what hideous beasts or cruel riddles awaited.
But there were none.
The room was square and probably double the size of his living room at home. The floor was made from purple marble, and dew dripped down the stone walls.
At the end of the room was another oval door, which he’d need to open to beat the puzzle and advance. Next to it, fixed against the wall, was a lever.
It couldn’t be so simple, could it?
He walked around the room, inspecting every inch of it. He checked the walls for hidden panels. He kneeled and stared at the floor, wondering if there was any tiny writing to give him a clue.
Nothing.
Hmm. The only thing was the lever, so what else could he do?
He pulled it.
Big mistake.
First, there was a crash. A giant hourglass had fallen from the ceiling, and the sand in the top half was pouring into the bottom. He didn’t know how much time it represented, but there wasn’t much sand.
Next, he heard a snap and crack, and the smell of spent mana filled the room.
Something growled.
Something else roared.
He found himself trapped in the room with two chimera. These were monstrous crosses of a lion and a serpent, with fangs coated in saliva, eyes burning red.
His blood rushed to his extremities. He got that prickly feeling in his scalp, the one he always got when he was nervous. It felt like someone was gently poking him with hot needles. It wasn’t painful, just unpleasant. Even worse was the idea that Soulboxe had brought one of the peculiarities of his real-life into the game.
As the chimera to his right leaped, Gallo cast a stone shield spell, and a small brick wall thudded into place. The monster crashed into it, cracking its head against the rock.
Now he ran his hand over his blade, imbuing it with a red, fiery light that would add fire damage to his attacks. This drained his manus completely, so he only had melee attacks left.
He swung just as the left chimera leaped at him, slicing its underbelly. It hit the floor and then lay on its side for a second, before struggling to its feet. The other chimera rounded the wall and attacked.
Gallo took a potion from his inventory – his last potion – and drank it.
Energy coursed through him. His m
uscles grew twice their normal size. Now, little markers appeared on the chimeras, showing where they were vulnerable.
The next few seconds were a frenzy of growls and shouts, of bared teeth. Of firelight gleaming over his sword as he struck again and again and again.
By the end, he was exhausted, covered in blood, and he’d lost a quarter of his health.
But the chimeras were dead, and the sand in the upper portion of the hourglass was almost gone.
It was a timer, and letting a timer run out was rarely a good thing in Soulboxe. It usually meant that you’d failed a challenge or a quest. But killing the chimera hadn’t reset it, so what could he do?
There was only one thing – the lever.
He pulled it again, and the sand in the glass refilled.
And this time, three chimeras appeared.
“God, why did I ever come into this tower?”
There was no answer except three growls. Gallo knew what he had to do, and he had to do it now, while his potion was still active.
The dance began again. It ended with three dead chimeras, and Gallo clinging onto half his health points.
Another pull of the lever. Another filled hourglass.
And four goddamn chimeras.
Exhausted. His nerves frayed to the point of snapping. So much chimera blood on his hands that he had to wipe them on his armor or his sword would slip from his grasp.
He was done. He couldn’t do this anymore. It wasn’t just the endless enemies. It was that the tower was relentless, it got worse with each step. It never, ever told you hold long you would have to do this for, how many rooms you would need to conquer.
But he wasn’t a quitter, and he summoned up his last strength and he fought the four chimeras.
By the end, with four chimeras dead, Gallo had just one hitpoint left. One measly point. No potions, no mana to cast a healing spell. Right now, if a fly flew into him too hard he’d go and meet his maker. Which was technically him, actually. Since he created his playing character, he was his own maker.
